Bruce Gardner's Dog Triggers Robbery Scare at His Orem, Utah, Home

The call was coming from inside the house, which is why Bruce Gardner feared the worst.

The Orem, Utah, resident had been at work for only a few minutes when his cell phone rang. His home phone number showed up on the caller ID, but there wasn't anyone at his house at the time.

"I knew nobody was home, so I answered it," Gardner (pictured at left) told the Deseret News in Salt Lake City. "I said, 'Hello,' and all I could hear in the background was all this rustling noise. I wasn't quite sure what it was."

Scratching and heavy breathing could also be heard, and Gardner (pictured at left) became frightened.

"My mind immediately went to, 'I'm being robbed,' " he said.

As he rushed home, he called police and alerted them to the suspected break-in.

"So you can hear something?" the 911 dispatcher asked.

"Yeah, I kept yelling, 'hello, hello,' and all I can hear is things being thrown around and stuff," Gardner replied.

When police arrived at Gardner's home, they found no sign of a break-in, and Gardner was stumped.

If you wanted to clear out some cobwebs from your backyard, you'd probably reach for a broom or something, right? Eiliya Maida thought a blowtorch would be better. Shockingly, his backyard ignited in flames. (Who would have thought?!) The fire spread to his house, and firefighters had to cut a hole in the roof to help put out the blaze. Luckily, Maida's wife and two children escaped safely and no one was injured.

Children get into everything, and 3-year-old Dontay Mosley was just having some fun with a barbecue lighter -- until the living room carpet went up in flames. Then, as care-free kids will do, Dontay went to the kitchen to enjoy a bowl of cereal as the living room burned. Dontay's mother, Milly, grabbed him and led him out of the house they were renting to safety, along with one of their cats and their dog. Sadly, firefighters couldn't rescue one of their other cats.

In the end, the fire destroyed all of the Mosleys' possessions. "We have lost everything, but we are all very lucky to be alive," Milly told Metro.co.uk.

A man who accidentally caught his jacket on fire with a lit cigarette thought he put the blaze out, so he hung the jacket out on his porch and went to bed. It wasn't until the next morning that he realized his mistake -- because he woke up to the house burning down. The jacket, obviously, was still on fire and ignited the porch. The man and his wife were able to escape unharmed -- but his house, on the other hand, was not.

While Stevie Spencer was painting his house, he put a bowl of paint thinner on a coffee table. Later, when he went to put out a cigarette, he mistook the paint thinner for water. So he dropped the lit butt into the bowl -- and 15 minutes later his home was destroyed.

Spencer evacuated his wife from the house, and he tried to extinguish the flames with a hose. But after suffering minor injuries from the blaze, he gave up and watched the house burn.

When Charles Harris' dog, Thor, died, Harris tried to contact several animal shelters to ask how he should dispose of the carcass. Unfortunately, they were all closed at the time, and the dog was too heavy for Harris to carry to a local animal hospital.

Harris put wood next to the dog's body and doused it with gasoline in his backyard, but the fire got out of hand. It spread to his house, caused severe damage and rendered it temporarily uninhabitable.

Olympic figure skater and gold medalist Kurt Browning accidentally left his Porsche convertible in the rain. So he allegedly used a leaf blower to dry the car's interior, but left the blower unattended in the home's garage, causing a fire.

The flames spread to the house too fast for Browning to put it out with his fire extinguisher. And by the time firefighters arrived in his Forrest Hills neighborhood and evacuated the home, the fire had already broken through the roof. Despite the extensive damage to the house, no one was injured.

As we've already learned, trying to kill spiders with fire usually leads to a bad outcome. But, hey, how about another shot at it?

A man in England saw a spider crawl up the front of his property, so he attempted to set it on fire. But the sparks ignited the surrounding material, causing the insulation between the walls to catch on fire.

Firefighters responded and removed the rest of the insulation, and after two hours, they were able to put out the fire before it reached the roof.

Where: Montana Vista, Texas
Damage: One house burned to ground, nearby house damaged

Can we agree by now that killing any kind of bug with fire is a bad idea? Luciano Ramos used gasoline to burn a beehive near his home. The fire spread to his house -- and then ignited a second home nearby. Firefighters were able to save the second house, but Ramos' dwelling burned to the ground. His wife and two children weren't home at the time, and no one was injured.

Gardner began looking for the phone, and when he found it, he realized what had happened. The phone was lying in the garden in the backyard.

"It was really dirty. I picked it up and sure enough there are teeth marks on it," Gardner said.

And then the furry culprit came forward. Gardner's dog, Maya, had gotten the phone and chewed it, her teeth hitting the redial button and calling Gardner's cell phone. A robbery scare turned into a case of a bad dog (pictured above) causing mischief.

"The cops got here so fast, they probably distracted Maya from finishing eating the phone," Gardner told local TV station KSL.

The silly story has become somewhat of a talking point at the police station in Orem, police Sgt. Craig Martinez told KSL.

"I've heard of some pretty strange things, but this ranks right up there with something I've never heard of happening before," Martinez said. "The whole thing is curious. It's just really odd."